On Stage Ottawa: Should you see it?

Should you see it? Our latest reviews.

A little romance, some family turmoil, and a bunch of laughs in Odyssey Theatre’s The Amorous Servant

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The scene is set with Pantalone chatting up old chum Ottavio on behalf of Ottovio’s son, Florindo, recently booted from home after a quarrel with stepmom, Beatrice. Ottavio holds the belief that a happy home is giving in to whatever Beatrice wants, including the estrangement of his son and signing over the family fortune to Beatrice and hers.

The only thing standing in Beatrice’s way, and the only thing keeping abandoned and destitute Florindo (who, frankly, isn’t capable of functioning on his own in the world) from starving to death is valiant and loyal Corallina. As hero to Beatrice’s villain, Corallina vows to not only expose Beatrice and get Florindo home again but to get him the heart of his love, Rosaura along the way.

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Movin’ Melvin Brown, A Man, A Magic, A Music: To Ottawa Fringe with love — #OttFringe 2017

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Sitting in the late show of Movin’ Melvin Brown’s A Man, A Magic, A Music, I glanced off and saw his silhouette projected against the side wall. Ten-feet tall. Larger than life. I knew that that was how I had to start this review because that’s the best way to describe him. Movin’ Melvin Brown has such a strong personality, he’s exploding with it in every word he says or sings, every tap he dances, every laugh he laughs.

A Man, A Magic, A Music, is a 90 minute gift from Movin’ Melvin, telling the stories of his life, cracking jokes, dancing up a storm, and singing. God, can this man sing.

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The ADHD Project: A charming look inside the life and mind of a neuro-divergent. — #OttFringe 2017

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I worry that Carlyn Rhamey’s The ADHD Project may be overlooked because its title doesn’t presume to draw any particular attention (unless ADHD is already a particular interest). I worry that Carlyn Rhamey’s The ADHD Project may be overlooked by there being a lot of solo storytelling this-is-my-life shows that pass through Fringe, making it hard to stand out on those merits.

What should easily overshadow both of those for ye who are reading is Carlyn Rhamey herself.

I had the pleasure of attending Rhamey’s show SAOR last year (one of only four I saw in an uncharacteristically slow year) and that was all I needed for me to rank The ADHD Project high on my list for this year. Here’s why you should do the same.

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Do You Want To Live Forever?: Delightful dance and poetry but no real investigation into the question. — #OttFringe

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A three-rated show is a good one. A three covers everything from "all right" to "really really good".Do You Want To Live Forever? is a story told primarily through dance with a side of poetry added for good measure. It is the story of a man who has learned to live forever and is seeking a worthy partner. Or it is the story of a woman stuck in the doldrums of life with the weight of impending death weighing her down. Their stories overlap in a relationship spanning centuries that eventually sees her reconsidering her place in it all. Neither character is named in the text so I’ll be calling them He and She.

The dance and movement work in the show ranges from excellent to very good. Delightful and mesmerizing. Allison Burns is a gorgeous dancer, exemplifying poetry in motion. Travis Martin makes a wonderful counterpart for their duets. And Alya Graham (as Maum, the goddess responsible for the gift of immortality) does some really fantastic work.

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Hootenanny! Popular Australian children’s entertainers come to Ottawa, hilarity ensues — #OttFringe 2017

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Popular Australian children’s entertainers, Hoot and Anny are on the Ottawa stop of their latest world tour. It turns out that this will be their final tour, but only one of them knows it. What starts out as a normal show, Annie announces it will feature a surprise announcement – which is news even to Hoot. It devolves from there into a deep dive inside their imploding relationship while they try their hardest to maintain the facade of continuing their children’s concert.

If you take all the funny things around, banana peels, clown noses, baby giggles, and you stuffed them into a blender to make a Positively Hilarious Smoothee™, and then you gave it to a pair of artists to drink, Kate Smith and Will Somers would deliver you Hootenanny! True fact.

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Your Princess Is In Another Castle: The reality of loving mannequins, and other meta-cultural absurdism — #OttFringe 2017

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In a world where mannequins are people too, reality TV is always watching everything, and the Leader of the Free World is decided by phone in vote, American Idol style, two actors help bring meta-cultural absurdism to its critical mass.

Nancy Kenny is a superstar, let’s start there. She is a fantastic actress with a captivating stage presence and that’s all on play in her Princess Polly. Wes Babcock as her part-time foil part-time ally – I’m going to coin the term anti-antagonist – is a perfect hopeless unknowing douche. Don’t ever change, Prince Charming Type. Not that you ever would. As stereotypes go he is (and then some), she isn’t. The two play off each other with comfortable chemistry, though their relationship is nearly overshadowed by Polly and her on again off again mannequin boyfriend.

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Dicky Dicky Dream Factory: Like a Dream, Pleasant yet Vague — #OttFringe 2017

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A three-rated show is a good one. A three covers everything from "all right" to "really really good".

It is very hard to write about a show like Dicky Dicky & Theatre 4.669’s Dicky Dicky Dream Factory. Less so, if you don’t mind spoiling vast swaths of what lies ahead of you should you be lucky enough to get yourself one of their limited seats.

Dicky Dicky Dream House is… an experience. In fact, you might say that the show is the experience, that it’s the being there, the interacting and the reacting. And, of course, the laughs. Bizarre and awkward as it may get at times, Ray Behsarah and David Brown are on point throughout this entire performance.

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Rough Magic: A Shakespearean prequel that will leave you believing sprites can fly — #OttFringe 2017

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Rough Magic is an original prequel to William Shakespeare’s The Tempest, depicting the relationship between Ariel (Lindsay Bellaire) and Caliban (Phillip Psutka) from the moment they met right up until the storm conjuring that opens The Tempest.

I saw Theatre Arcturus’ Weird: The Witches of Macbeth in 2015 and raved about it just a bit. It was my first recommendation when anybody asked me what I saw and loved (and what I heard from a lot of people in return).

Rough Magic was everything I’d wanted from a Theatre Arcturus follow-up and once again, it’s the first one I mention when people ask what I’ve seen and loved.

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Unbridled Futurism: Travel between dimensions in the science-fiction show you didn’t know you needed — #OttFringe 2017

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Captain Nick Di Gaetano of the Echolalea is an astronaut aboard Earth’s first spacecraft capable of reaching light speed. Not this, Earth, mind you. He’s just stopping by to visit. After a two year journey out to where the first test of the light speed drive is to happen, he runs into an anomaly that leaves Captain Nick unstuck and bouncing between parallel Earths, trying to find a way home to his wife and cat.

It’s science fiction, obviously. It’s part rock concert, part story-telling, part TV show. There’s sentient raccoons, wizard cats, and inter-dimensional war. Oh, and it’s weird as fuck.

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DEB Talks: Unqualified experts sharing very bad ideas in a very entertaining show — #OttFringe 2017

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DEB Talks consists of “D-Displaying E-Exceptional B-Bullshit” by a group of unqualified experts with some very bad ideas. It’s a lampooning of TED Talks, if you haven’t figured that much out, through a series of solo character sketches with no narrative purpose but to make you laugh. Which it does well.

Written and performed by Deborah Ring, who breaks out new hair and a few accesories for each character, succeeds in cracking her audience up from the opening powerpoint presentation introduction. No, I mean it, from beginning to end. Laughs. Lots and lots of laughs. Lots of them. I’m not kidding.Read the full review.

Your Princess Is In Another Castle: Miss Leader of the Free World; or, How to be a 21st Century Fe’man’ist — #OttFringe 2017

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Four Rated

At a time when political clout appears tied to the reach of one’s Twitter and Instagram feeds, Down the Well Production’s Your Princess is in Another Castle  could not be more timely.

Meet Princess Polly (Nancy Kenny), runner up in the Miss Free World Competition—the reality TV show that would determine who gets to rule over the free world—turn barista.

Meet, for lack of a name, Generic Privileged Male (Wesley Babcock), who, having found Polly toiling away in a coffee shop, realizes that it is his duty to save her from her own post-election obscurity.

What will happen when you bring the two together? Could it be the romantic entanglement the general public expects of two attractive people? The morbid indulgence of the world’s darker hungers, resulting in the corruption of a capable and compassionate leader?Read the full review.

Incognito: in Wishy Washy: Not Just a bit of Hocus Pocus — #OttFringe 2017

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Four Rated

If you read the show notes, you might expect KosoWhat Production’s Incognito to be a show about a clown, striving to survive in a world where clowning has been made illegal, and the protagonist would be struggling to keep his clownish proclivities secret from the world at large (something akin to Mike Kosowan’s 2015 Fresh Meat performance, Train Compartment).

At the start of Kosowan’s show, there is a general mistrust and comedic condemnation of clowns established (hearkening back to 2016’s rash of creepy clown sightings), however it really isn’t the focus of the show; in fact, by the end, it’s largely irrelevant to what is going on.

What Kosowan has for us, rather, is a performance that is part magic show and part cautionary tale, delving into the trouble an impatient clown can get into when he decides to try his hand at more mystical arts…

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Underneath It All: Traversing an Emotional Vortex — #OttFringe 2017

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Four Rated

Right from the start, Pretty Ugly Production’s Underneath It All first thrusts you into a maelstrom of panicked speech, dizzying and obscure at first, the relevance of which is slowly teased out through the quasi-monologue of Hannah Gibson-Fraser’s unnamed character. As though caught in the vortex she herself alludes, we watch as she slowly circles around an unknown source of trauma, slowly pulling at the loose threads around the edges of her memory as Jodi Morden—playing the psychiatrist, the echo, the memory—coaxes her along to truths she’d rather not admit.

However, as Gibson-Fraser’s character continues to reminisce, there is a growing realization that she is no stranger to trauma, to abuses masquerading themselves as love…

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